The Drug Enforcement Administration has initiated a massive national license plate reader program with major civil liberties concerns but disclosed
very few details, according to new DEA documents obtained by the ACLU through the Freedom of Information Act.

The DEA is currently operating a National License Plate Recognition initiative that connects DEA license plate readers with those of other law
enforcement agencies around the country. A Washington Post headline proclaimed in February 2014 that the Department of Homeland Security had cancelled
its “national license-plate tracking plan,” but all that was ended was one Immigrations and Customs Enforcement solicitation for proposals. In
fact, a government-run national license plate tracking

This bothers me a great deal. The article goes on to ask some very good questions. How many of these readers are the DEA currently operating? What,
if any, impact has this actually had? How broad is this program? Who all is involved with sharing data?

The DEA has invited Federal, State and local Law Enforcement agencies to contribute to this program. It's frightening to know that anyone belonging
to one of these groups is allowed access to the database if they are "vetted". So how many people have access? How hard is it to gain access?

As usual, all the details are not provided to us citizens, so we can't even make an informed complaint. I don't think that the DEA or anyone else
needs to know where I drive, when I drive, or why I'm driving.

I don't think everyone driving down a "drug corridor" should be subject to monitoring and suspicion. I don't feel like this is an appropriate use of
technology. I don't feel safer. I don't feel like netting a big drug bust makes monitoring everyone acceptable. let me drive down the freaking
street without being on camera and having my car slapped into a database. I thought red light cameras and speed cameras were bad. This is a new
level of messed up.

I am all for LE using technological advancements to hem up the bad guys. Thing is, I don't want to be caught in the net at the same time based on
where I live, where I drive, etc. I might be overreacting. This just stinks to me. I feel like there have to better ways of keeping harmful drugs
off our streets that don't require a database and information sharing of anyone that just happens to drive in an area where these cameras are present.

Actually they could be doing a lot more than reading plates. They get their man some other way, and then say it was from tracking his plate.

In WW2, many of the strange mistakes the Allies made were so the Germans would not know that the Allies had broken the German Ultra Machine Encryption
system. TPTB still wont directly state when and where in the current histories.

Like at the Battle for Crete, The Allied commander deployed his troops like he was expecting a naval assault, while all
the while the British knew that there was no German navy in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The Germans invaded and took the island by an airborne
operation because the Allied troops were in the wrong places. And that is all that the history books say.

originally posted by: JourneymanWelder
it would not surprise me if every licence plate ever made had a tracking chip.

It would require an energy source (solar panels or battery), a GPS receiver, accelerometer and transmitter. But licence plates tend to fall off at
random, so that's not practical. Therefore you get GPS trackers that plug into the electronic system and in theory could log everything happening to
the car.

They make passive tracking chips that work like a parabolic mirror. The chip takes in the scanning frequency from the reader and uses the scanning
frequency energy to power an amplifier circuit and broadcast a signal back out. The signal is only an ID number, but that is enough to ID the car.
With some number of readers around town they, or anyone for that matter, could keep an accurate record of all of the car's movements.

originally posted by: Aazadan
So, there is a technology that can fight this (it stops red light cameras too) and that's infrared light. Cameras cannot deal with infrared light,
it just shows up as a white splotch. You can try it at home with a remote control and your phones camera. With powerful enough lights you can blank
out your license plate while still leaving it readable in person or wear a hat that blocks your face from security cameras.

I've read a bit about people trying to do this on their cars but they've failed because they haven't been able to put out enough light to protect
their plates during daytime. If we have any bored electrical engineers here it would be a good project for someone to work on.

Blocking with IR could work for a bug out, but if they are watching you it only gets you on a list of suspicious persons.

Blocking is one good reason to leak this story, to see who is going to self identify as a outsider.

First the Department of Homeland Security and the NSA considers all Americans to be potential terrorists. Now the DEA is declaring all Americans
potential drug runners, dope fiends, dope dealers, and manufacturers? Nice. It's about time they be honest with with everyone and come clean about
their real purpose: to keep that money making drug war machine well oiled on this side of the border. To keep minority areas poor and violent by
ensuring the steady flow of hard drugs. To give law enforcement, public institutions like schools, and private companies reason to ignore the Bill of
Rights in the name of "keeping kids safe" or "drug free America". To give the medical industry enough incentive to get people hooked on big pharma
painkillers, then tighten the supply and cut people off, creating a new black market for pain pills.

If you asked me which government entity/department i DESPISE the most, it would be the DEA. More than my combined mistrust and dislike of the CIA,
NSA, DHS, and IRS combined. The other agencies, even if corrupt, do serve an important purpose more often than not. (well, dunno about Homeland
Security. They are redundant and overpowered.) But the DEA creates the problem it exists to eliminate in a self-perpetuating cycle that is ruining
lives all over the world.

The guy who wants to, and has the power and ability to, dismantle the DEA and end the drug war insanity is the guy I would support for president,
regardless of whoever he might be. Even if it was Darth Vader.

Hell, I'd vote for Vader anyway. Force Choking the crap out of every government parasite in D.C. is the only way we can save America.

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
Blocking with IR could work for a bug out, but if they are watching you it only gets you on a list of suspicious persons.

Blocking is one good reason to leak this story, to see who is going to self identify as a outsider.

It depends on how many other people are also blocking the technology. If only one person blocks you can reliably assume all null data belongs to the
same individual and still track them. If even 100 people in a city of 1,000,000 start blocking and they aren't each geographically distinct there is
no way to differentiate the data and each is secure.

Aside from paying as few taxes as I have to (I think everyone is already doing that) none of those things appeal to me, and I don't think it wold
change all that much.

I'm speaking more about how to change this specific issue. As in who to write and say this is a horrible idea. Groups to join. Things like that.

I think that is not possible. The organs of government will keep growing because the government itself keeps growing.

Government is 40% of the Gross Domestic or National Product. 40% of the current output is over 7 trillion dollars, which is bigger than the whole
economy was back when the income tax was passed into law.

Also 40% of the population has government money, either from employment or from transfer payments. Any group going against the government will be out
voted.

The 40% figure will grow as ObamaCare becomes a vehicle for more lawmaking.

There are no groups like that, you can always right your congress people.

originally posted by: Aazadan
So, there is a technology that can fight this (it stops red light cameras too) and that's infrared light.

I have seen these various tricks tested and all failed.

I've seen it work in controlled conditions such as dim light over a small area. The larger the area the better the lighting you need, and the
stronger the ambient light the brighter your IR needs to be. No one has made it work well enough to reliably obscure a license plate yet, atleast not
by drawing power off of a car's alternator, some systems that run entirely on their own battery have worked but then you have to charge it, have a
run time, and all the rest so it's not really feasible.

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